Everything You Learn at Sabio Transitions Over: Axl's Journey from Graduation to Employment
Axl didn’t do anything IT-related when he was in the military. But that didn’t stop him from going through Sabio and landing a job in tech worth $87k a year with full benefits. And his timeline proves the effectiveness of the bootcamp. “I started Sabio in April, graduated in August and got a job offer in September. Like, it's all seamless.”
The job application process requires a lot of effort though. Out of the roughly 2,000 job applications he sent out, most were rejected. The job search process is indeed a numbers game but Axl has a few tips on how to maximize your success rate:
“One piece of advice I would throw out there is, you know, the easy apply on LinkedIn. Yeah, it's easy. You can spam a whole bunch of applications that way. But honestly, not a lot of recruiters look at that because like I said, they're being spammed by a ton of people. If you actually take the extra second to go on the website, if it is a website, and apply, they actually look at those a little bit more carefully.”
The other thing he cautions against is putting all your eggs in one basket, meaning – don’t come to a halt with applying once you start doing interviews. Because those interviews come with their own hoops and are no guarantee of a job. As Axl says, “Keep applying because nothing is concrete, nothing is certain until you get that job offer.”
What made him stand out in the job interview? Having a normal conversation that showed off his personality and his ambition. “They wanted to know, do you have drive, do you have the passion to learn, to be intuitive, the hunger for knowledge because that's what they want. Especially, you know, somebody that doesn't have a lot of background.”
If you’re ever asked outright if you went to a coding bootcamp, don’t lie. Axl warns that they can pick up on this. Instead say, “I went through an intensive hands-on program that taught me a lot of skills, etc., etc.” But it’s important to not advertise that you “just graduated.” Steer clear of those words because that will throw you in the same category as college graduates who have NO professional experience whereas you, coming out of Sabio, do.
When the question of salary came up Axl gave them a range: $75 - $85k a year. A few days went by and he didn’t hear anything. Then, they called him and said they wanted to give him $87k and full benefits. “It was above my expectation so I had nothing really to negotiate. So I was, you know, pretty friggin happy.”
Working completely remote now, Axl is content at his job. He works with many of the same languages he picked up at Sabio – .NET, Microsoft SQL server. And for the new ones he’s having to switch to, the skills he learned at Sabio make it easy for him to easily pick them up. The stand-ups too, while a bit more in-depth than those at Sabio follow the exact same format. As Axl puts it, “Everything you're doing at Sabio happens at companies.”
Axl was hired by:
naviHealth 